Here & Now

Elmer Moore, Jr. on Rental Housing Tax Credits in Wisconsin

Frederica Freyberg:
Affordable rental housing across the state is getting a boost with the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority announcing nearly $50 million in housing tax credits to developers that are expected to create rentals for up to 5,000 people from working families. For more on this, we are joined by WHEDA CEO Elmer Moore, Jr. Thanks very much for being here.

Elmer Moore, Jr.:
I am delighted to be here and share with you some of the good news of the work we’ve been doing.

Frederica Freyberg:
Where is the need most acute for affordable rentals, and will these developments be located in those areas?

Elmer Moore, Jr.:
You know, an interesting thing about housing in today’s environment is that it’s acute everywhere. The need for affordable housing is experienced in rural, small, urban and in the in the city centers. And so wherever we can make strategic investments in the form of housing tax credits across the state, they’re going to be desperately appreciated.

Frederica Freyberg:
And these developments and developers will be working across the state.

Elmer Moore, Jr.:
Absolutely. It’s 35 developments. You know, one of the realities is that we have not seen a tax credit development in all 72 Wisconsin counties, but in this instance, we’re going to be looking at 26 communities across the state, which is actually pretty, pretty successful.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is the definition of affordable?

Elmer Moore, Jr.:
I’m so glad you asked that. And I’m going to give you two definitions. When we talk about affordable housing, usually what we’re referring to is what I refer to as capital A affordable, which means a subsidized housing development that is rent restricted to people with incomes 80% or below of the area median income. These are often financed with tax credits or other public sources. The other side of affordability is really just housing that occupies no more than 30% of a family’s income. So we have started a conversation about affordable housing with that capital A. Also housing that people can afford, which might be unrestricted but it’s not necessarily as expensive as what we have historically called market rate.

Frederica Freyberg:
I was just going to ask if this is a model that has worked historically.

Elmer Moore, Jr.:
The LIHTC program, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, was a bipartisan effort from 1986. This was Ronald Reagan’s administration’s work. It is well understood as the most successful private-public partnership in our country’s history. It has generated hundreds of thousands of rental housing units and homeownership units across the country. For WHEDA alone, we’re talking 61,000 units have been created using the housing tax credit program. You know, we have deployed – are you ready for this number? – $644 million in just tax credits. That has really moved the needle, and it has incentivized the investment of communities and developers in the form of housing across the state.

Frederica Freyberg:
How does a lack of such kind of affordable rental units affect the economic health of the state, not to mention the needs of lower income renters?

Elmer Moore, Jr.:
That is playing out in the form of diminished health outcomes. There’s an aspect to educational outcomes. Everything that we care about in our society is impacted by whether or not people have safe, stable housing. If they can’t afford the housing that they are occupying and very many people, something like 60% of renters, are in housing that actually is considered unaffordable. They are rent burdened. The economic outcomes is they’re not able to make very key investments in things that will support them thriving, whether that’s childcare, investing in their own education, access to health care. Whether it’s the choice between paying rent or putting gas in your car so you can get to work on time. Housing is at the very core of how we experience life.

Frederica Freyberg:
Is it the expectation, though, that because of declining working age population, the need for new housing units like this will also decline?

Elmer Moore, Jr.:
Unfortunately, that isn’t exactly the case. There’s multitudes of housing, whether it’s senior housing, family housing, housing for people with special physical or cognitive needs. In Wisconsin, 60% of the housing is more than 40 years old. You know, I live in a house that’s 120. And I can guarantee you, when those craftsmen were building that structure, they didn’t necessarily plan for me to be living in it 120 years later. That’s how housing has always been. We are in a crisis because housing is both unaffordable. We aren’t producing enough of it, and what we have is often aging out.

Frederica Freyberg:
Well, Elmer Moore, we leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us.

Elmer Moore, Jr.:
I’m so grateful. Thank you for your time.